Apocrypha
by KhamanV
Summary: Richard might not remember birthdays, or age, or waver before other men. But he does dream - though it is not for us to say he dreams true. Extremely speculative, heavily Egyptian, some events of S5.


Apocrypha

"_He speaketh to me the words of men. I listen to him and I repeat to him the words of gods." ~ The Egyptian Book of the Dead_

It is a dream. It is not real. It may be birthed of memory, or it may be birthed of madness. Richard Alpert sits quietly, at peace, his thoughts submerged in the primal dreamstate. His dark eyes are shuttered, the shadows of the banyan tree casting lines across his face and across his hands, like henna. Whispers come to him, unheeded. He is elsewhere. He is wandering, looking for answers. Looking for the way.

* * * *

_It is a dream. The boy awakens in the shadow of the God's unfinished pyramid. Far in the distance are the cries of the workmen, ululating their salutations to Ra as he passes again to the West. His dark eyes gaze up, the marble surface of the monument blazing fire, His blessing. There is a moment's holy terror in him, for Apep might strike during the night and Ra never to rise again._

_Surely the battle will ever be won! He will speak his heresy privately to his father later, who will comfort him. His father is a great man – he might himself be placed in the pyramid the boy is embraced by. He tells his son many things, many secrets, for he believes the boy is also touched by destiny, guided by the Gods._

_When the boy was born, the jackals sang out, or so the story goes. When the boy began to walk, walk he did. Straight out of the little city and into the reeds. He does not remember, but his father tells him that he had claimed to be following a big black dog – and that he had fallen asleep with it, curled at the edge of the Great River, untouched by the hippos that had been roaring their hunger nearby. He had been safe – or so he had told his father._

_The workmen had touched him fearfully after that, and he was careful to be kind in return._

_Ra blazes, rides, and then falls into the West. The boy murmurs his prayer and runs home, the strange green smell of his dream caught still within his mind._

_* * * *_

_It is a dream. The boy is not yet a man, but not yet more than a boy. He wanders further amongst the reeds, east of Tettu, looking for the way. He speaks his prayers to Anubis to guide his feet, but the Delta denies him its soul. The boy's dreams are driving him to madness, and he spends one month of the river's inundation in a fever that the priests and the doctors cannot cure, screaming that, yes, he will see the secret Statue, that he can smell the jungle, that the pale men will follow him on the journey when he comes among them._

_His father was never afraid. He sat by his son's mat and rested his hand on the boy's shaven skull, marking it with rich oils. He sang all the songs he knew, even the ones he should not utter beyond sacred walls. They are the only things that the boy remembers when he calms. Save for the eye._

_He hears a strange, alien sound on one of these visits to the reedy banks, before the madness fell on him. It is like a distant metal roar, like a thousand bronze weapons clanking together at once. He is not afraid, though the crocodiles hunt this patch of river daily. He is not afraid of the roar. It is familiar to him, but he can't remember why._

_When the river's gift begins to recede, his father, now aging, comes with him on one of these journeys. They do not speak until Ra is perfectly overhead. And then he is told: "The time comes soon that I will send you on a long walk, and only your prayer will guide you. Follow the whisper that you hear in your heart and you will find your way. I am so sorry, my son. I send you to a mystery, and you will become a mystery. Forgive me."_

_The boy is afraid because his father is. But they do not speak more of their private prophecy for four more years._

_* * * * _

_It is a dream. He remembers as he walks. His father's withered body awaited its washing, awaited the other priests to take it away and ready it for Duat's journey. His hand was still caught in the young man's stronger one, smelling of years of blessed oils, smelling of the henna that he had been permitted to place on the fingernails of the young God, their pharaoh. As he walks now, he can still smell the wood and musk and resin on his fingertips. It drowns out the green. And the sand. And the whispers, though he listens now and again to mark his direction._

_There is so much sand where he walks and he craves the gentler Nile. Dunes stretch before him, dunes stretch behind him. He alters his journey now and again and unerringly finds oases just before he depletes his energy. Each time, he thanks Anubis before allowing himself to drink, before feasting on the berries he finds. He carries nothing, he is only dressed in the simple kilt. He has let his hair grow, and it is shaggy and black and oily._

_He walks for weeks, his feet bleed. He follows Ra to the west. He walks perhaps months, and sometimes he is accompanied in the night by beasts he can't see. And suddenly, he knows his journey is done. It is full night and the dunes shine silver. The moon rises high, and the udjat looks down upon him._

_He falls to his knees and closes his own eyes. He opens his heart and waits._

_He waits three days, the holy fever boiling, the hunger gnawing, but he does not stray from what the whispers have told him. Smells familiar and strange coil around him._

_And when he is finally told that he may open them again, he opens his mouth to scream._

_For he is at its feet, in its shadow. The Great Statue, the thing that has haunted his dreams since his youth. Suddenly, the weight of the future he has been given, the fate that he has been whispered weighs too heavily upon him and he flees into the jungle, away from what he has found. His hands whisper along tall grass, which whispers back to him, loudly, telling him that he is home._

_He feels lost, despite these ghostly words. He found his way – to what?_

_* * * *_

_And it is still a dream when the pale men come and beg him to lead them, for they are also lost, and so very afraid. He does his best but denies the mantle of ruling, for he is never quite sure of the way himself. He does the best he can. His father didn't know: There is no one road. Souls branch like the Delta, and he does not know where any of them end. He can only try to guide, like his patron._

_In time, he forgets his beginning. In time he forgets time. There is only the River, and duty, and Aaru - the Island._

_* * * *_

Richard opens his eyes. Though he dreamed, he did not sleep, and the whispers told him urgently of decisions to be made. His brow is furrowed, his dark-limned eyes taking in the sun while he wonders what, exactly he should do. The truce was broken again, and the intruders were very near. They have a boy with them, but the whispers did not give a name. Something is unsettled in his stomach. Richard rises, and slips through his trails to encounter the approaching group. The boy they hold is familiar, and he speaks the name questioningly, though he already knows the answer.

He must decide, and he is given no guidance. Time, history, mystery, and souls all split down unknowable roads, and not even he is given answer when he calls for help. He must do his best. The boy is lost, and Richard has deep sympathy for him. To the temple it is – and may Gods grant that he has chosen rightly.

In the future, which he also dreams upon from time to time, he looks on the man that the boy has become with worry. Richard is still looking for the way. It is not found in the man's blue eyes, or scattered among his many plans. Richard despairs, and gambles it all.

Time will tell if his own plan bears out. Only and again, ever time.

_~fin_

(ABC's LOST and its characters are not my creation, nor do I claim any ownership or rights to the above content beyond that of the average godforsaken fanfiction writer. All errors are my own.)

2009/4/5


End file.
